When I got out of prison, I spent some time in parole under supervision.
During this time, I stayed at a “halfway house”. Actually a couple of them. And I worked as a janitor cleaning the YMCA at night. My work hours were 9pm to 4am.
You know, I had to be invisible to my fellow Americans. LOL.
…
Anyways, I was assigned a vehicle to ride back and forth from the house (that I shared with four other men) to the YMCA that I cleaned. The vehicle was a donated work van. It was distressed, and shitty, but the engine worked, and it sure beat walking.
Now at the side of the van was the words “Toilet Toms Happy Rooter” with a picture of a ridiculously happy plumber happily pulling a huge turd out of a ugly toilet.
A grotesque image.
Caused me the butt of so many jokes.
But, you know, a man has got to do what a man has got to do.
…
Then my dad died, and I had to deal with his funereal.
Now, once I was arrested, labeled a sex offender, and incarcerated, my entire family turned their collective backs on me.
I heard from a cousin that they reasoned that I just “had to be guilty” as no one would give a first time offender FIVE YEARS for nothing.
Which is true.
It was damn odd that I got five years at hard labor for the evidence, and the fact that up until I was 50 something and arrested, I was a decent enough citizen.
Anyways, no one wanted to hear the detailed truths. They wanted to hear a narrative that fit into their simplistic understanding of the world.
…
And once accused… you are labeled for life.
So not only did they want nothing to do with me, but they gleefully smirked as I drove to the funereal in the “Toilet Tom” van.
Everyone was smirking and talking about me and the van I was driving.
Meanwhile, they all drove expensive cars, and all the rest. I was the only one that looked like some kind of poor, starving, refugee. I was a junk-yard mongrel dog surrounded by white pristine Persian cats.
The feigned nice behaviors and the statements dripping with sarcasm left scars that I will NEVER forget.
…
Ten years plus later, I’m living in China.
I’m married with a daughter, living in a penthouse, on the ocean and doing well for myself.
And I have been in periodic contact with my brother via Skype.
He sets up a video conference with my sister and her daughter who was married to a doctor in New York City.
My cousin and their kids … good chat. They remembered me, and associated me with a caretaker role for their grandmother. Not as a person; a uncle, or anything bad. I was their grandmothers live-in relative.
But my sister… Oh, doggy!
Judging from her expression, as she just sat there dumbfounded (her mouth open in shock), she didn’t know what to make of me. It was jaw literally hanging open. Oh, you see the expression in comics and illustrations, but this was live in real time. Stunning.
What the fuck?
…
After that video conference…
…my brother stopped calling me, sending me emails or anything else. It was radio silence, and you all know that story. I related that elsewhere.
Putting the two incidents together, one can only conclude that they wanted to stay in touch with me to know how shitty my life was, and when they found out that I was prospering… well, they didn’t want to have anything to do with me. And openly shunned me.
Explains why my brother has been such a dick.
Life.
Today…
Unexplained “Anomaly” Near Antarctica: Reported 80′ Foot Waves Moving north (Meteor Impact?)
An unexplained “anomaly” is now visible on Ventusky.com ocean monitoring system. A strange “burst” of 80 foot waves has emanated from Antarctica and is showing as moving north.
I have never seen anything like this. Did a huge chunk of ice fall into the water causing a massive Tsunami? Did a Meteor Hit the ocean from space? Did some major earthquake take place that no one registered?
As one might guess, there are absolutely zero Tsunami Warning Buoys around all of Africa.
If the video below is correct, these 80 foot waves are now smashing into the southwest coast of the Africa Continent, and +20′ tall waves will make it into the Atlantic ocean, to the USA and to Europe, within the next few days.
The video below lays out the current situation. Beneath the video, this story continues with word I got BEFORE the April 8 eclipse, warning me there was an inbound meteor. I did **NOT** publish the story over credibility concerns. Here. Watch the video:
On March 31 . . .
I received intel from a scientist telling me the following:
Meteor headed for impact with earth. IMPACT near Madagascar on April 8, an object about the size of Camel Back Mountain in Arizona
“Mean distance = 29.3018
Eccentricity = .98153
Inclination = 4.35684
Ascending node = 18.5295
Arg of pericentre = 94.1284
Mean anomaly = 305.16514
We call her “Maddy the Elly” (Interpreted by me as “Madagascar” Extinction Level Event”)
She’s coming and she’s BIG “
I was also told:
“They’re not going to announce until about 8 hrs before impact if the plan holds. That’s why they are worried about the millions of people in the eclipse viewing zones. Not because of their location but because of the mere fact they are away from their homes and those areas are going to be over stressed. Hence the national guard and prep talk.”
Now, I get all sorts of “tips” about news every day. I have to sort through a lot of . . . ahem . . . . nonsense.
The fact that this particular communication contained such specifics, coordinates and such, I decided to send it off to a couple contacts I have to inquire about it.
Out of the contacts I reached out to, ONE responded later saying “Yes, I’ve confirmed this. It is real.”
Now, I trust this person very much. I have no reason to doubt __anything__ he says. But I had concerns about this.
First, what if we’re being lied to . . . on purpose . . . . so we run a story, which scares the living hell out of people, only to have it be false? There goes all my credibility. Gone, in one fell swoop.
Next, what if it __is__ true. Do I want to be the one who starts a global panic? Uhhhhhhhhhh, NO!
So, I told my wife and son about it, and we shuffled-off to our bugout home in northeastern Pennsylvania to be away from New York City for the eclipse, but with a worry about this alleged meteor, too.
Eclipse day happens. Nothing goes wrong. Anywhere. All the planning, all the hoopla, all the disaster declarations, mobilization of National Guard units, . . . . nothing happened to need any of it. And . . . . no meteor strike.
I thought to myself, what to do about this guy who “confirmed” the meteor? Turns out, he farmed-out the info to some of HIS sources, and it was one of THEM that told him, “Yes, it’s true.” He trusts this person so he told me “Yes, It’s true.”
But nothing happened on April 8. So . . . where does that leave us?
Well, the very next day, slightly off course (south of Madagascar by considerable distance) this . . . perturbation . . . . in the ocean.
Uh Oh. Is __this__ the meteor? Did it hit?
If it did, there’s no one for maybe a thousand miles in all directions around the impact site, who would have seen it or heard it.
If it came at Earth from what would ostensibly be “underneath us” who would have even seen it in an Observatory??? There are almost none down there.
There are also no warning buoys anywhere down there to alert about ocean disruption. No shipping lanes where vessels at sea may have noticed anything. The potential impact site is literally in the middle of nowhere!
I’m starting to think that yes, the meteor story __was__ true, but incorrect on it’s impact timing.
I think this “anomaly” we’re seeing on Ventusky . . . is the result of that meteor impact.
Always trust your gut feelings
Yellen Dispatched to Beg China for Face-Saving Slowdown
Vocal Coach REACTS to DIO- BLACK SABBATH- HEAVEN AND HELL (LIVE)
Wow.
How can I change my life within the next 10 minutes?
For years I waited for a magical life-changing moment to happen, but it never happened.
I expected change, but it never came.
I then turned to people around me. I expected my parents to change my life, but I never changed.
My teachers pushed me for change, but as soon as I left school, I went back to my wrong habits.
“There’s clearly something wrong here,” I thought to myself. I started searching for something or someone to blame for my inability to change my life!
With anger I blamed my school, my family, my country, my culture… I even blamed the very same friends I had chosen to surround myself with.
I spent decades waiting for a quick, magical ten-minute, life-changing moment. It never happened — but eventually I did learn a huge lesson.
You don’t need 10 minutes to change your life, just a few seconds:
- Wake up and stop searching for answers!
- Wake up and stop blaming people!
- Wake up to your reality and face it!
- Wake up to understand that NOBODY cares if you change or not!
Only YOU can change your life in ten seconds, ten minutes, ten days, ten years or maybe never!
Stop waiting for external things to change your life.
Change only happens from the inside out!
Until YOU decide to change your life, nothing will ever happen!
Changing your life is a DECISION.
Decisions belong to YOU — nobody else!
What’s a rule your employer implemented that backfired terribly?
Several years ago our supervisor decided one day he wasn’t happy with us leaving work 10mins early and told us we had to work until the very end of our shift.
Our team did 7 am to 3 pm and 2 pm to 11 pm shifts.
Our 7 am start should have been an 8 am to 4 pm shift but we agreed to drop back so there wasn’t a long period of time with too many people in the office after 2 pm.
As the organisation had 24/7 shifts with staff always available, it was common practice to take over the outgoing shift early AND our booking system was programmed to round your booking off to the hour if you booked off at 2:50 pm or 10:50 pm. We pointed this out to our supervisor whose response was “I don’t care what other teams do, this is how you will do it”. We also pointed out the number of early finishes we actually had was far less than the 10, 15, or 20 min late finishes we had – which we could claim as pay at double time, but didn’t because a 10 min early finish was seen as better compensation when we could have it.
He also tells us if we want a drink at the start of the shift we make it before we start work and not after we have started.
On day one of his new rule being implemented, he waited until 3 pm before saying we could go home!.
DAY 2. 6:55 am, morning staff brief, night team had gone home as normal, we waited in the office, the supervisor comes out telling us briefing had started only to be told we didn’t get paid until 7 am so we won’t be joining him until then.
We walked in at 7 am and disrupted everyone.
We finish at 3 pm.
DAY 3, nights had told us the supervisor was waiting in the office and had decided to do his own 7 am brief so we didn’t disturb the other team. We waited until 7 am and then put on our work uniform, then walked in 7:02 am where he tried telling us we were late! Only our response was, that getting our work kit on is part of our paid working day so we were not late but on time working but elsewhere in the building.
We also decided to check our bookings going back to April (we were in Sept) and see how many days we were late off, quite a few, we queried with our payroll dept as to why these were not paid to us as per our contract T&Cs at double time, they said they would get back to us.
We again finished at 3 pm.
DAY 4 we walk in at 7:02 nothing said about being late as the supervisor had decided to hold our briefing at 7:15 instead, he sat down with a smirk on his face that day.
We again finished at 3 pm.
DAY 5.
We walk in at 8:02 am! He was fuming demanding to know why we were all LATE, we pointed out our shift didn’t officially start until 8 am, and starting at 7 am was an agreement we had made in good faith, as there was no good faith from him we would be working to the rule of our job description and employment contract. A few more words were exchanged between us all and then our manager appears and demands to speak to us all.
Our manager had received a call from the payroll dept, they weren’t happy that we had called in our overtime since April that year, the total overtime bill for the entire team was nearly £2000, it would be 3 times as much if we wanted to go back further and they knew we could so he wanted to know what was going on.
I just told him to ask the supervisor who had started it and we would correct him where necessary. After the supervisor explained his rule change and OUR poor conduct in the matter we asked for the supervisor to be removed from the room and gave our version including explaining how taking a 10 min start was more than enough to make up for the late finishes. The manager asked us to leave and then called back the supervisor.
After their meeting the supervisor called us back in, he had reversed his rule change, he saw no issue in what we had been doing previously, and effective immediately the new rule had been scrapped. He also asked if we would go back to starting at 7 am and if we wanted to make a drink after we started that would be fine. As for our overtime, it had to be paid as a result of our query.
So within a week, a new rule came in, went again, and left an organisation with a payroll bill they wouldn’t have had if someone hadn’t stirred things up.
Have you ever had to tell someone in the movie theater to “shut up”?
Yes, with an expletive thrown in. Not proud or bragging, but it happened.
I was with my wife in the second back row watching War for the Planet of the Apes. The cinema was packed, not an empty seat in sight.
Behind us there was a large group, men and women, chatting constantly. They weren’t even trying to be quiet about it. Just blatantly talking and laughing amongst themselves, stretching across each other sharing loud food, looking at their phones—you know, all the annoying shit you’re not meant to do.
We could tell everyone was getting pissed. Many of them kept turning round to give them dirty looks. Eventually a young woman close to me asked them to be quiet. They did not. Another 15 minutes of rudeness, and it was someone else’s turn. A man nearby, without looking at them but loud enough for them to hear, angrily said “shut up!”. Still nothing.
Bear in mind I had waited a long time for this movie to come out, as I’m a big fan of the franchise. It’s a very atmospheric movie which was being destroyed by this asshole.
Half-way through the movie and two attempts from others later, I lost it. I turned round to face him and yelled “will you shut the fuck up!”.
You could tell a mile off that this guy thought he was the business. He also didn’t want to look stupid in front of his friends, so he replied “you shut the–”. I stopped him mid-sentence with a “No. Don’t respond. Just shut up!” He did.
We heard next to nothing from them the rest of the movie. A win for everyone, but unfortunately I was just in a bad mood for the remainder and didn’t enjoy it as I should have.
My question is, why would you go through the effort, time and money of going to the cinema to not actually watch the movie? Especially when you are ruining it for others. Oh, that’s right, because some people are just straight-up dicks.
As a surgeon, have you opened somebody up only to realize that they were beyond saving?
I am not a surgeon, but I have a related story to tell. My uncle was driving his motorhome to his favorite fishing lake, when he got terrible stomach pains. It was so bad that he pulled off the highway and into a small town hospital, they did a cat scan and flew him back to the city.
Where they opened him up, his guts were rotten. Everything had gangrene. They said that he would die within a few days, no matter what they did, they asked his wife what he would want. My aunt said to do everything possible to save him.
They did, I don’t know what all they removed, but it was at least part of the stomach, most of the intestines. I found that out from taking to him later. They said he was septic, and that they couldn’t get him clean inside, and he would die soon. The whole family was called and we stood a death watch. When he passed the four day mark, my cousin asked the doctor what was next. The doctor said he had no clue, because this had never happened before, we were in uncharted territory.
It took three months for him to come home. He had a very specific diet, a catheter and a colostomy bag.
He lived for three more years.
China’s EV export boom fuels surge in demand for new car-carrying ships
By Sarah Wu and Brenda Goh
April 9, 20249:31 PM CDT
BEIJING/SHANGHAI, April 10 (Reuters) – Chinese automakers and shippers are ordering a record number of car-carrying vessels to support a boom in EV exports, data showed, putting China on course to amass the world’s fourth-largest fleet by 2028.
China currently has the world’s eighth-largest fleet with 33 car-carrying ships, showed data from shipping consultancy Veson Nautical. Japan has the world’s largest with 283 ships, followed by Norway’s 102, South Korea’s 72 and Isle of Man’s 61.
But Chinese companies have 47 ships on order, accounting for a quarter of all orders globally. Buyers include SAIC Motor (600104.SS)
Chery Automobile (CHERY.UL) and EV giant BYD (002594.SZ)
as well as shippers such as COSCO (COSCO.UL) and China Merchants on behalf of Chinese automakers.
“After this armada has been delivered to China, the Chinese controlled car carrier fleet will jump from current 2.4% to 8.7%,” Veson analyst Andrea de Luca said. “We expect to see new trade routes established almost exclusively for Chinese OEMs (automakers).”
The jump in orders has mostly benefited Chinese shipyards, which received 82% of orders globally, the data showed.
With price-squeezing competition, cost-conscious consumers and a sluggish economy, automakers have ramped up expansion into markets where their vehicles command higher prices than at home. Last year, China overtook Japan as the biggest auto exporter.
BYD alone exported over 240,000 cars in 2023, about 8% of its global sales, and plans to export up to 400,000 this year.
Foreign peers such as Tesla (TSLA.O)
and Volkswagen (VOWG_p.DE)
have also expanded production in China for export to take advantage of the country’s cost-effective supply chain.
Rising shipping costs and local government support have persuaded automakers to buy ships themselves. By the end of 2023, the daily rate to charter a 6,500-vehicle carrier reached $115,000, more than seven times the 2019 average, showed data from shipping consultancy Clarkson.
But the export rise has prompted the U.S. and EU to accuse China of trying to deal with excess industrial capacity by flooding their markets with low-priced products.
The government said the focus on capacity is misguided and that it understates innovation and overstates the role of state support in driving growth.
The risk of excess capacity is also high in shipbuilding, said senior economist Xu Tianchen at the Economist Intelligence Unit, with China the usual target of finger-pointing.
However, “there remain some niches where the market probably hasn’t saturated, such as car cargo ships,” Xu said.
U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen
raised overcapacity concerns during a four-day trip to China. Meanwhile, China’s Minister of Commerce Wang Wentao is visiting Europe, where he is likely to discuss a European Commission probe into whether Chinese-made EVs unfairly benefit from subsidies.
Can you name one of the most meaningful stand out “light bulb moments” of your life that stuck with you?
I grew up in a working class family and when I say we were broke, we were broke.
I figured out quite quickly what a dollar was worth when I was very young.
I couldn’t get a quarter out of my father without him pitching a fit.
By the time I was 12 ( 1984) I waa sick of not having anything so I lied abour my age to get my first job to make some money
I worked on a fishing boat for tips that whole summer. By the time I was 15, I had had 3 different jobs. Cutting lawns and dish washing at local restaurants.
A few years later I am 18, its 2am, im leaving my gf house because I have to get up in the morning to go to work.
My car breaks down on the way home and I call my gf to pick me up and drive me home.
I left the car on the road for the night and would deal with it in the morning.
The next day I had to call into work so I could deal with this broken down car.
I had a little bit of money but not much.
I guess I was hoping because I was such a good kid and had been working and bought my own school clothes and whatever else I needed for the last few years that my father would actually help me this time.
Nope…… when I saw him the next morning, he says…aren’t you supposed to be at work?
I say, ya my car broke down on the way home from my gf house last night.
I wanted him so bad to say, oh wow, do you need any help, or anything fatherly. What he said, without moving his eyes from the TV screen was…..so what are you going to do about that?
Those words were enough for my lightbulb to go off thinking, this guy is just not going to help me at all.
For years i resented my father but figured out, he inadvertently taught me how to be independent
That moment as shi**y as I thought that was to do to your kid actually made me so much stronger
Wet Burritos
A wet or smothered burrito is covered with sauce and/or toppings; therefore, it cannot be picked up and eaten.
Ingredients
- 1 cup sour cream
- 1 cup cream of mushroom soup, undiluted
- 1 1/2 pounds ground beef or turkey
- 1 onion, diced
- 1 envelope taco seasoning
- 1 can refried beans
- 8 flour tortillas
- 4 cups shredded Cheddar cheese
- Lettuce
- Tomato
- Salsa
Instructions
- Brown ground beef and onion.
- Meanwhile, mix together sour cream and mushroom soup.
- Spread 1/2 cup of soup mixture in the bottom of a 9 x 13 inch baking pan.
- Mix taco seasoning and beans with ground beef or turkey mixture.
- Divide meat among 8 tortillas, and add a sprinkle of cheese.
- Roll up and place in pan with seam side down.
- Cover with remaining sour cream mixture and cheese.
- Bake at 350 degrees F for 30 minutes.
- Serve with lettuce, tomato and salsa.
Xinjiang
Today is my third and final day in Kashgar, the capital of Uyghur culture in China.
Not one sentence of what I’ve been told about Xinjiang is true.
Xinjiang is not only the last place in the world where you could imagine a genocide happening — it’s also simply heaven on earth. I had no idea life anywhere could be this good. I’ll be very sorry to leave Xinjiang. Toronto is a toilet in comparison.
I’ve never seen an indigenous people who are happier and whose culture flourishes more than the Uyghurs. I will share a ton of photos and videos. Any intelligent person can observe these people and tell that they are not oppressed.
Next I’m going to the city of Korla. The last leg of the tour.
Roasting Men’s Living Spaces
This is hilarious! It will make YOUR DAY!
Inspirational photos
I generated these photos via LeonardoAI.
Husband OUTSMARTS Wealthy, Cheating Wife By Playing The Long Game With Prenup, Now He’s Cleaning Up!
US cannot keep up with PLA in weapons R&D spending, new systems deployment
US Pentagon officials have publicly admitted for the first time that the US cannot keep up with China in terms of new weapons system return on investment (ROI) and rate of deployment.
While the US defense budget is four times larger than China’s, much of the Pentagon money is wasted on pork barrel projects from Congress made for political reasons, and on the huge number of personnel and inventory stationed around the world in order to maintain US global influence. One Pentagon official admitted that there is no chance for the US to catch up with China within the next 20 years because the US military would have to downsized, and defense supply chains would have to be completely remodeled to become efficient.
Defense spending in the US is spread all over the US to create jobs so that defense spending would get support from all 50 states voting in Congress. This has made it very wasteful and inefficient.
In certain areas, Americans blind faith in private enterprise has led to the bankruptcy of strategic suppliers which cannot be replaced. Example: the only maker of steam catapults for aircraft carriers has declared bankruptcy, which means that there will no longer be support for these devices from a private contractor. Without support, the Navy will have to train its own personnel to conduct repairs. This would never have happened in China because key military technologies are developed and maintained by state-owned enterprises, and their top priority is NOT profitability when it comes to key strategic technologies.
Dating Coach Tells Her Clients IT’S OVER The GOOD MEN Are Becoming PASSPORT BROS
A few days ago, I watched a public speech given by Mr. Jin Canrong at a certain university in 2008. He predicted the future pattern of world war and mentioned a very interesting concept – warm war.
Jin Canrong is a doctoral supervisor at the School of International Relations at Renmin University of China and an expert on American issues.
If World War II is a “hot war,” it means that the two major forces faced off in an all-out manner, using all available means to achieve conquest and total surrender as the outcome of the war. Then the Cold War after World War II was the two major groups of the United States and the Soviet Union, using non-war methods to compete comprehensively and compete on the international political stage.
In 2008, Mr. Jin Canrong predicted that the next war in the future would be a “warm war.” It will not be a game between major powers with pure military force like a hot war, nor will it be a competition only at a non-war level like the Cold War.
Instead, major countries use the unstable regions of third parties as a card table and indirectly fight a limited “competitive war” or ” agent war ” through economics, weapons, and technical assistance to determine the new political pattern of the world. This is a bit like what is talked about in some science fiction novels. If two countries have disagreements, they each agree on how many personnel and unmanned war machines they will send, and then demarcate a “battlefield area” where, like a card table, they can be operated remotely Win or lose in games. Just like the situation at the poker table, the two sides have some tacit rules to ensure that each other will not fall out and start an all-out war by any means necessary to get out of control. Nor will we use chemical weapons, nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction that exceed the limits and cause permanent problems to the environment.
Both sides are like Olympic athletes, competing with each other for the latest technical equipment and tactical concepts, and constantly increasing the weight on the card table through military blood transfusions, until one party’s wallet is empty, and the gentleman folds his cards and admits defeat, Get off the table.
No matter whether we win or lose, our roots will not be damaged, and we will not be in danger of destroying our country. At most, we will lose our right to speak in carving up new markets internationally in the next few years. This kind of “warm war” that starts at intervals can also clear weapons inventories, boost the country’s domestic demand, and increase the president’s voice. Therefore, it is even possible for the world to open more than one “card table” at the same time, or every few years, a country with an itchy hand will end and reopen a card table. Some countries that were once economically developed but have fierce internal conflicts and have a relatively large population of young adults will be the location of the “card table”.
Another reason why there is a warm war is the aging of developed countries. As a country’s economy develops, life expectancy increases and fertility rates decrease. At this time, the country began to enter an aging population. In countries with an aging population, the willingness of the people to directly participate in war will be very low, and it will be very difficult to recruit soldiers. Because the parents of young people do not want them to join the army anymore, and the elderly want a stable life and do not expect drastic changes. Therefore, it is difficult for these developed countries to start a war in person like World War I and World War II. Instead, it will use a “warm war” approach to conduct low-intensity limited wars outside the homeland.
It now seems that our world should be going through such a stage. Fortunately, World War III did not start with a full-scale nuclear war as imagined in many novels , but a more restrained and limited local war. Behind the scenes, all major countries actually have interests, and they have also made “bet”-like camp selections and economic and military support. But just like playing cards, there are those who pull out their guns in a hurry and refuse to admit their defeat, This kind of warm war may also gradually escalate into a hot war because too many interests are gradually involved, or even turn into a direct end, and the situation will get out of control.
Author Note
Now the Bio War launched (Covid 19) by the US already failed, the trade war already Failed, the technology war already failed, Indo Pacific already failed replaced with AUKUS, Warm war in Ukraine failed, financial war by increasing interest rate also failed. will the US camp admit defeat or they will increase this into a hot war? no matter what the US camp attitude is dedollarization is coming, new world order is coming.
A former Sami parliament member faces 18 years in prison if convicted
© TikTok / dirtydozeneira
Sandra Andersen Eira, a former member of an indigenous parliament in Norway, has found herself on Moscow’s wanted list for joining Kiev’s “international legion,” TASS has reported, citing a law enforcement source.
Eira went to Ukraine in March 2022 and first enlisted with an Anglo-American unit. She has since been reassigned to the Ukrainian Marines as a medic.
The arrest warrant was issued this week under Article 359, Section 3 of the Russian Criminal Code, “as part of a criminal investigation into the participation of a mercenary in an armed conflict,” the source told TASS.
The website of the Basmanny Court of Moscow was updated on Tuesday to reflect an outstanding warrant against Eira. The court has ordered her arrested for two months from the moment she is detained or extradited to Russian territory. If convicted, she faces up to 18 years in a penal colony.
Eira was born in 1986 and is a member of the Sami ethnic minority that lives in the far north of Norway. She worked in the fishing industry in the Arctic prior to being elected to the Sami parliament (Sametinget) from the constituency of Avjovarri in 2017. Her term ended in 2021.
The Norwegian national was first identified as being in Ukraine’s service by the Washington Post in April 2022.
In an interview with the Ukrainian publication New Voices in May that year, Eira said her unit was deployed north of Kiev and fought in Irpen and Bucha before being sent south to Nikolaev. She also said she was the only female in the unit and all the Ukrainian soldiers treated her “like a queen.”
In another interview, dated January 2023, Eira revealed that she had fought in Soledar and Artyomovsk (known in Ukraine as Bakhmut) but left before the towns were taken by Russian forces. Being a combat medic was her childhood dream, but she always assumed it was going to be in the Middle East, she said at the time.
“I did not expect a war with Russia, but here we are,” she added.
What are ten truths everyone should accept in life?
- You’re loved when you’re born, you will be loved when you die. In between, you’ll have to adjust.
- Nothing that you love or loathe or have control over, will last forever. Love, bliss, pain, anxiety, people, nothing!
- Nobody cares about what battles you fight everyday. So make sure you fight well for yourself.
- People whom you trust, will stab you in the back and ask you why are you bleeding. Of course, exceptions always exist.
- You may not be fortunate enough to pursue your dream job but hey, that’s totally okay 🙂
- Some people will hate you for no reason at all, no matter how much you do for them. Accept that fact and stop stressing over it as if it’s your fault
- Money can buy almost everything including happiness. This is because our happiness has become exceedingly materialistic and there’s no shame in acknowledging this fact.
- You will be judged for every single thing. They will always tell you that you could have done things better. This world will never be satisfied.
- You can’t be the best. Never ever. So rather focus on being REAL.
- The trouble is that you think you have time. Life’s real short honey, things will vanish before you wonder how, go get what you want for all you have is NOW.
What did your boss do or say to you that made you quit your job?
When I was 18 I worked at a fast food place called Hardees. For those not familiar, this is the same chain as Carls Jr. If you’re not familiar with either of those, it’s basically like a McDonalds or Burger King.
My normal days off were Sunday and Monday, but I had asked for Saturday off one week because I had a date. My manager let me off, and when I left work Friday night I waved and said “See you Tuesday!” on my way out the door.
Saturday night I go on my date and everything goes fine. When I get home my roommate tells me my manager called five times wanting to know why I wasn’t at work. The store was closed by that point so I decided I would just go in the next day (Sunday) and remind her that I had the day off.
Sunday afternoon I go to the store and ask to speak to the manager. She immediately starts reading me the riot act about not coming in to work and not calling to let them know I would be there. I let her get it all out of her system, then I pointed to the schedule on the wall right outside of her office and said “I wasn’t here because you told me a week ago I could have yesterday off.”
She looked at the schedule, looked back at me, and the light popped on. “That’s right,” she said, “I remember you saying see you Tuesday when you left Friday night. I’m sorry, it totally slipped my mind.”
I was fairly pissed off, but I decided that it wasn’t worth making a big deal about. I told her not to worry about it, and again said “See you Tuesday” as I left the store.
When I got to the restaurant on Tuesday I was told to go to the manager’s office immediately. When I walked in she started off by saying “Why weren’t you here yesterday?”
I gave her a blank look, then finally responded “Because it’s my day off.”
She responded “No, I changed the schedule Sunday, and since you had Saturday off I needed you to work yesterday. Why weren’t you here?”
I must have been looking at her like she had two heads at this point.
“What time did you change the schedule on Sunday? When I was here at two o’clock we looked at the schedule together, and I was still scheduled to be off yesterday.”
“I changed it around eight o’clock Sunday night.”
“So what you’re saying is that you changed my schedule on my day off, and scheduled me to work the next day, and expected me to somehow know you had done this without telling me about it?”
That’s when she went too far. “I’m your boss, not your mother. It’s your job to keep track of your schedule, I shouldn’t have to do that for you.”
I took off my hat and my apron and replied, “You know what, you don’t actually have to do anything for me. I’m done.” I handed her the hat and apron and walked out the door, didn’t look back.
Beef Brisket Burritos
Ingredients
- 18 slices beef brisket
- 1 tablespoon vegetable oil or butter
- 6 (10 inch) flour tortillas
- 1 cup Mexican cheese, grated
- 1/2 onion, sliced
- 1 jalapeño, deseeded and diced
- 2 tomatoes, sliced
- Cholula sauce
- Lettuce, shredded
Instructions
- Warm the brisket slices.
- Put the oil or butter into a large skillet over medium-low heat. When oil is heated, or when butter is melted, quickly warm the flour tortillas on both sides.
- Place slices of brisket down the middle of the tortilla. Top with cheese, onion slices, some jalapeño, some tomato, Cholula sauce, and top with lettuce. Carefully roll the tortilla around the filling, tucking the ends to prevent any of the filling from falling out.
Yeehaww!
China sez no to buying US T-bills
In short the interest on US debt is $1.2 trillion and rising. Just the interest. Much of that debt is also OLD debt at lower yield and yields are rising fast.
Now of course somebody will say USD will NOT collapse it will still remain dominant etc.
But here’s the thing, it doesn’t need to collapse.
Western elections for instance. You do not need to convince ALL the voters of your position only the marginals. The 1–2% at the marginals can cause an entirely different party/government to be elected… hence, why political parties always target the marginals.
Small niggles become bigger problems very quickly.
This is a harsh truth
Which company will fall first: Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon, or Microsoft?
Anyone of them can fall
I remember in 2010 when people spoke of BlackBerry being a trillion dollar valued company by 2020
It had a market value of $ 50.7 Billion at its peak
It made smartphones and had a Global share of nearly 16%
Then suddenly Apple and Google surged ahead. The Touch Screen ended the Mini QWERTY Keyboard and today BlackBerry survives on IOT patents
That’s the problem with Tech companies
A New Direction in Technology can render then null and void in six months after decades of existence
Hewlett Packard was once valued at around $ 130 Billion at its peak but today it’s around $ 27–28 Billion
That’s because nobody in 2010 expected that your super fast internet could be available on your smartphone that would render a lot of Laptops as vestigial
So let’s see
They have a lot of services. A whole lot of services. Yet are they monetized?
Google makes 80% or more of its Revenue from Advertising
The entire Google infrastructure seems to be entirely oriented towards micro advertising
They have YouTube, Google Search Engine, Chrome to help them build enough customers to generate a huge advertising income
Google has a near monopoly today as far as YT and Chrome and the Search Engine are concerned and thus so far it’s advertising revenue is safe
Chance of a Fall :- Bleak in the next 5 years. Google seems safe. Unless a rival comes up in the next five years at a evolved scale either in searching or browsing or video streaming
Amazon
Amazon has AWS but the near monopoly is absent.
Google, Microsoft, Huawei, Alibaba, Oracle all compete with Amazon AWS
AWS is where the big profits are
The E Commerce generates moolah but not profits
The E Commerce is just the source for Data like Google Search Engine or Chrome
Chance of Fall :- AWS has a low tech threshold and will lose share to Huawei and Alibaba especially in the emerging economies minus India
I see their value falling in 5 years and their market cap.
Unless they step up their technological edge
Meta
Meta is guaranteed to cease to exist unless they manage to get Metaverse rolling
How many people use Facebook anymore?
Instagram helps get a lot of advertising and revenue space but Instagram is slowly being phased out by TikTok and Douyin and Live Streaming apps
Chance of a Fall :- High in the next 5 years. Very high. I doubt Meta in its present version will exist beyond 2034
Apple
Apples bulk revenues come from its products like Iphone and Ipads and other products with Iphone earning almost 70% of Apples revenue
It’s profits come from its services like Icloud etc
It also has Valuable Proprietary software
Plus it’s own Chip architecture
However that also demonstrates Apples weakness
Everything is linked to that one IPhone
If the Iphone and it’s popularity tanks then Apple will have a steep fall
I am sure Iphone will tank in China and in many countries that would sell both Chinese Phones and Apple in the coming years
I don’t see any innovation by Apple and their advantage of a Smartphone with its own Ecosystem will soon be replicated by others
Once EVs become more popular, the next player is one who can integrate his EV Mobile platform to the Smartphone and handle processing for both
Apple ain’t that player
Chance of a fall :- 50% in the next 10 years. I doubt if the company will keep a $ 3 T valuation in a decade. It may fall to maybe $ 375-400 Billion in the next decade
So according to me
Meta > Apple > Amazon > Google
Highest chance of a fall is Meta
Lowest is Google
Again unless the Tech evolution climbs to a whole new level and suddenly Google loses its key market and competitive edge
Male Standards Are Frowned Upon
Michael Roberts
Michael Roberts has an interesting piece on China’s economy today. The disfunctional nature of western capitalism- so celebrated by the Ideologist/Economists- as it disappears up into its own orifice has reached the stage at which it pleads for help from the competition. The truth about the ‘market model’ is that it only works when it has evolved into a series of mutually reinforcing monopolies controlling the state and, through it, society. That’s what the capitalists call ‘freedom’- one chance in a million of becoming a dictator.
“The recent nonsense issued by the US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen on China’s ‘overcapacity’ and ‘unfair subsidies’ to its industries is particularly pathetic. As Renaud Bertrand put it: “the so-called threat of China’s industrial overcapacity” is a buzzword that actually means that China is simply too competitive, and by asking it to address this, what Yellen is truly asking of China is akin to a fellow sprinter asking Usain Bolt to run a less fast because he can’t keep up.”
“….(Renaud) Bertrand..: “despite the very low prices for its EVs or solar panels, Chinese companies involved still make a profit (industrial profits are rising at double digit growth), and they DO charge higher prices abroad than at home. The competitiveness of Chinese companies is overwhelming: today, in scores of industries – like solar or EVs – there is simply no way for American or European companies to compete with Chinese ones. This is the real issue: Yellen and Western leaders are afraid that if things keep going, China will simply eat everyone’s lunch.”
“China is the only country in the world that produces all categories of goods classified by the World Customs Organization (WCO). This gives it a key advantage when it comes to end prices: when you want to build something in China you can literally find the entire supply chain for it at home. Bertrand: “China has become an innovation powerhouse. In 2023 it filed roughly as many patents as the rest of the world combined and it’s now estimated to lead 37 out of the 44 critical technologies for the future. All this too has implications when it comes to the final prices of its products.”….
https://thenextrecession.wordpress.com/2024/04/10/chinas-unfair-overcapacity/
Posted by: bevin | Apr 10 2024 15:28 utc | 12
On the plus side, Metallicman, you were born to guide the Domain and their Agents of Change through the mess of this Reality Universe, and will doubtless have an immortal role to play on the Other Side. The Disordered shall be recycled ad infinitum.
An old teacher of mine once said some people are born to families wherein they and their siblings remain best of friends for life– and many of those in fact need those relationships to even function in everyday reality. While others simply aren’t, and have different roles to play. More than capable of taking that Road Less Traveled along with its dangers. And that’s just the long and the short of it. Fated by Powers beyond our comprehension (well, until your “blog” and the Domain Commander came along, anyway.)
Some people really do get off on seeing others suffer, I put that down to them being poorly constructed NPCs, guided by bursts of chaotic emotion, or by what others and the man on the TV says… devoid of original thought or empathy.
Good fucking luck with that,
heh heh… as if life here wasn’t challenging enough as it is, eh?
And thanks for sharing your story. You actually drove a literal shit-box for a few months! Don’t look back in anger, because you certainly weren’t the only one. I was well into my 40s before I drove a decent motor, and that’s only because my wife kept hassling me that I was showing up her shiny Prius.